The skiers shouted and laughed. Their conversations were about slopes and artificial snow and about the winter cold just outside the door.

The three men, in quiet voices, spoke of torture and human misery and of the choking humidity and searing heat of the jungles of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

They had brought with them a cheerless black and white flag, picturing the silhouette of a weary American soldier in a Southeast Asian concentration camp. The acronyms POW, for prisoners of war, and MIA, for missing in action, were spelled across the top. Underneath the picture were the words "Help Bring Them Home."

Jerry J. Ferdinand, the resort's marketing director, met the men, accepted the flag, and helped them raise it beneath the American flag in the lodge's courtyard.

A few curious skiers stopped their revelry to watch the odd ceremony. Heffly, Markley and Cooper (in uniform) saluted as Ferdinand slowly raised the grim reminder of a war some say is not yet over.

Heffly of R.2 Lehighton hopes that by flying the flag at sites across the country, his group can convince the federal government to step up efforts to find out what happened to the men.

Currently, there are five teams of Americans in Vietnam whose job it is to search out the remains of soldiers missing since the war.

Heffly, who served in the Marine Corps from 1959 to 1963, said that is not enough.

"The problem is that most of the men being held captive are in Laos," he said.

Markley, an R.3 Lehighton man who served the Marines twice, from 1942 to 1945, and from 1951 to 1952, agrees with Heffly that not enough is being done.

Pulling out a book about missing soldiers printed by the Department of Defense in 1987, Markley pointed to pictures of men being led away by Viet Cong.

"It's incredible to believe that all 2,400 are dead," Markley said. "And if they are, then that is an even bigger crime."

Cooper, a 22-year-old Lehighton native who is on leave from his camp in North Carolina, met the men Friday night at the lodge and was asked to join them on their mission yesterday.

Cooper pointed proudly to wristband he wears with the name of a soldier from Pennsylvania whose remains were never found, and who the group believes is among those being held captive in Southeast Asia.

Heffly said the Marine Corps League is selling the wristbands to help publicize the movement for MIAs and POWs.

Black T-shirts with the same silhouette of the captive American soldier are being sold by the group as well. On the back of the T-shirts is an outline of Pennsylvania and the names and dates of disappearance of the 118 men from the state who were never accounted for after the war. The wristbands sell for $4, Heffly said, the T-shirts for $5.